


To Kill A Ladybug

by Sybaritism



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Established Relationship, F/M, Family, Fluff, Funerals, Inaccurate Portrayals of French Stuff, Recovery, Slice of Life, implied depression, implied identity reveal, kind of ooc, upsetting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 12:36:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10386792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sybaritism/pseuds/Sybaritism
Summary: The love of her life is gone - and she thinks a piece of her left with him.In which Adrien dies, and Marinette has to cope with that.





	

Adrien didn't think he'd be a good dad. Even now, him knowing his baby girl is going to grow up without him is a pain like no other. He almost wanted to burst out laughing at the irony. He grew up without his mother - and now his daughter would have to grow up without him.

He hated it. There was never luck on his side. There's a dizzying pain in his stomach that tells him he doesn't have much time left. He took a shuddering breath, resigning to his fate. He leant on the side of his old high school.

'Plagg - Claws off.'

Adrien collapsed there, clutching his abdomen. Plagg fluttered around Adrien, and for the first time, Adrien actually felt like his kwami cared.

'Adrien. Adrien this isn't funny, you gotta get up' Plagg's plea only got more and more frantic as time wears on. 'C'mon man, you've got a kid at home - a fille, Adrien, get the hell up.'

'L-listen, Plagg, okay? You've gotta get back in the box.' Adrien started. Plagg stares at him in some kind of bewilderment, worry, anger, and fear, drifting further and further away from Adrien with every word he said. 'I'm gonna take you somewhere, okay? Marinette will take care of you, I'm sure. S-she's alwa-ays been great, you know?'

'No.' Plagg cried, 'no, I'm not going because you're not gonna die. You're Chat Noir, you're great and I'm not gonna let you die. C'mon, you gotta get up.'

Adrien chuckles, a breathy, wheezing sound. Faintly, he thinks one of his lungs might be punctured with the force that his ribs broke. Drops of water trickled onto his head. He looks up and sees that it's raining. What fitting weather to his death, Adrien thinks bitterly. He remembers his phone, and with the desperation of a dying man (Ha.) he fishes it out of his pocket. He sends off one text.

a: babe, when you get this, i have a present for you. go to the building we first met in.

If she replies, he doesn't know, because he's stuffing the ring that he just took off his finger - Plagg's protest get cut off here - and stuffs it in the black box he mentioned before. He leaves it there, and with the very last strength he has, he gets up and moves away from the _Collège Françoise Dupont_. He refuses to let Marinette see his dead body.

 

__

 

Marinette was, at first, thinking that Adrien had tried his way into being romantic. She had seen something online where couples made a scavenger hunt for each other. She thought they were rather cute. So when she set out with her baby strapped to her chest and umbrella in hand, she had high hopes that it would be a pleasant thing. But when she saw it.....

She now saw that what she thought was _not_ the case. The umbrella hits the ground, splashing water onto her clothing, but she could care less. She held the black box, nonplussed. She knew what it was, and she also knew who it belonged to. The only thing she did not know - the only thing that had her in a tizzy - was _why_ he put it in her possession.

A frightening thought struck her heart like one of Dark Cupid's arrows. Did her recently-made husband abandon her, her child, and Paris? The notion struck her dumb, and her voice came out in a shaken whisper.

'Tikki....' She breathed, and the called kwami flew up and out of where she was nestled on Marinette's daughter.

'What is it - oh my god. Mari.... is that?' Marinette nodded dumbly, fingers numb from the rain and umbrella filling up with an alarming amount of water.

'I'm so sorry,' Tikki said, daunted, unable to console Marinette in any other way. 'We've gotta take it, though.'

'I can't do this alone, Tikki,' is all Marinette said in reply.

Tikki sighs, fluttering in front of Marinette's face. There are tears on Mari's face, mixing in with the rain. Her baby stirs. 'I know. But Papillon is gone, remember? The master has his miraculous. There's not much danger.'

'That's not the point, Tikki!' Marinette snapped. Tikki flinched, daunted.

'I _can't_ do this alone.' She repeated. Tikki realises she doesn't mean what she says.

 

__

 

  
It feels like a long time before Marinette stirred, forcing her limbs to move. She tilted the umbrella upside down, the water falling out. She shook it, making sure it's dry enough, before putting it back over her head. It doesn't help. Even without it touching her, the rain drug her down, made her tired, chilled her soul.

When she arrived home, she's wet, miserable, and her husband is nowhere in sight. She put the shiny, engraved black box on the coffee table. The apartment is cold and empty. When Marinette removed her baby from the blanket wrapped around her she woke up and began to wail. Marinette was too tired and too upset to deal with this, but the baby is so cute, and some sort of motherly instinct had a hold on her. Marinette soothed her baby, whispered sweet nothings, mumbled cooes of her name.

It takes a moment before she's ready to put the now sleeping baby back in her crib. Tikki still hovered behind Marinette. Not fo the first time in her life, Marinette wanted to know what's on her mind. She doesn't ask.

'I'm going to take a shower.' Marinette stated. 'Please watch Aria.'

'Okay,' Tikki replied.

 

__

 

  
It was on the news, a couple hours later. Adrien was dead, and the thugs responsible were men busted from jail. Marinette stared in dazed horror at her TV, not wanting to believe that it was true. She felt, for a moment, that if she turned around and went to bed - closed her eyes - this would have been a dream. She would wake next to her _perfect_ husband and kiss the rosy cheeks of her _perfect_ green-eyed daughter, and this would have been a dream.

She closed her eyes. But before she can take that sweet relief, to sleep, to forget about this all, her phone rings. It's Alya.

'H'lo?' Marinette answers, still dazed.

'Do you need someone, girl? Nino and I can be over asap, I promise. We can help. Do you need anything?' It's all a blur, Alya's words, that makes Marinette's head spin.

'No, no.' Marinette mumbles. 'I just want to be alone.'

'I understand.'

Marinette hangs up, knowing that Alya was just going to say things that didn't matter to the former. ('I love you! It's going to be okay!') Marinette didn't want to hear it. She would most definitely not be okay.

Her apartment rings, and she knows it's a page from the lobby. It's 2 AM. There's only one thing it could be. She answers the page with a smile that doesn't even reach her eyes at all. She looks sad and tired and most of all, defeated. Broken-hearted. She'd just married the love of her life, and now he was dead. She wouldn't ever be okay again.

'Hello? Mme. D.C Agreste? We're sorry to inform you that your-'

'Yes, I know, it's on the news.' Marinette said shortly. Saying it out loud made it too real, she couldn't hear him say it. 'What do you need from me?'

'Well, since you're really the only family left, you need to figure out what you're going to do with this.' Said the policeman, the one who couldn't protect her husband.

Of course, she knew that blaming the entire police force in Paris was ridiculously unfair - it wasn't everyone's fault that Adrien was gone. But she needed a hate to hold onto, and she needed more than one. She hated the murderer, she hated the police, and most of all she hated herself. Hated that she didn't realise it was taking just a little too long for Adrien to come home.

'Okay.' Marinette replied. ' _Okay_.'

 

__

 

 

At the funeral, everyone was quiet. Marinette refused to sit down, refused to go anywhere but stay by his casket. People say that when you die, you look asleep, ethereal, beautiful. But Adrien - her husband - he just looked dead. His once beautiful skin, tan and rosy and perfect, was ashen and grey and lifeless. Marinette wanted to _die_. But she remained proper, silent, holding her baby and hoping nobody said anything. Everyone said their condolences, and when they lowered Adrien into the ground, Marinette almost didn't want to let them do it.

When they asked for something to put into the casket to stay with Adrien's body, something that Marinette was sure that nobody was going to do, everyone had something to put in. Flowers, Nino dropped in a hat, saying that Adrien had gifted it to him a long time ago. Alya dropped in a ladybug trinket. Marinette's breath caught at that, but Alya just winked and said his crush on Ladybug had never left.

The rest of the guests - some sleazy photographers, Models in black clothing way _too_ skimpy for a funeral, and sleek businessmen she did not know - all had something to say about Adrien or something to put in the hole he was destined to stay in.

Marinette clutched the fabric in her fist. With a sigh, she dropped it inside the casket.

  
On top of all the other gifts, there was a frayed blue scarf.

 

__

 

  
Marinette didn't interact with Plagg much at all. After opening that box, and slipping on the ring, she had two kwamis around her constantly. Tikki was like a hovering mother, and Plagg was like a child dragged along to an event he did not want to be in. Marinette wanted to smack the kwami senseless, but she knew it would be inappropriate. Instead, she baked pastries, helping her parents with the bakery, and when she was home she continued to further her fashion line. It was slowly coming to fruition, and more and more people came to buy handmade stuff.

It was one evening, while Marinette was doing her sewing and Aria was snoozing beside her - Tikki on top of her, like always, that Plagg started a conversation.

'Hey?' He said. It was more of a question than anything else, tentative and nervous. Marinette gave him a side eye. His green eyes pissed her off, and his likeness to Chat Noir riled her even more, but she suppressed that hate. She turned off the sewing machine.

'Yes?' She replied. The kwami took a deep gulp.

'I..just wanted to apologise,' he started. Marinette tried to interject, but he shushed her and continued speaking, 'it's hard, you know? not just for me, but for you. I mean yeah, the kid was -well, he wasn't a kid anymore, huh?- my holder, but you were his wife. And you're going through a lot of pain and instead of me comforting you I've been ignoring you, and I'm sorry.'

It's like he blurted it all out, a long train of thought. Marinette stared at him, genuine bewilderment on her face. She blinked - once, then twice. Finally, her face broke out into a smile.

She didn't hate him at all anymore.

 

__

 

'Hey, maman?' Piped Marinette's daughter from her side.

'Yes, mon cherie?' Marinette replied, tearing her eyes away from the tombstone and to her daughter. It had been some years since the love of her life had died, and she hadn't quite recovered yet. There was always a black sort of feeling, like how ink and oil feels on your fingers, inside of her chest. Sometimes she tells Alya she thinks her heart has turned to mush.

'What was papa like?'

Marinette sucked in a quick breath. Aria hadn't ever asked this question before. For a quick, panicky moment, Marinette didn't know what to do. Then, she took a deep breath and picked up her toddler. Aria was a smart child, bright-eyed and bright-minded, she could understand things better than most children.

'He was amazing and brave.' Marinette said fiercely. 'He could do anything, I swear he could, he had so many skills. He fenced, and played the piano, was great at academics...' She trailed off.

'He sounds like a superhero!' Aria squealed with glee. Marinette smiled brightly.

'You have no idea.'

 

__

 

  
'Maman! Tell me a story, okay?' Aria pleaded, throwing herself onto Marinette's lap.

'Okay,' Marinette said, cuddling her close. It was just a few days ago when she had explained what Adrien was like to Aria. Aria loved hearing about her father, so Marinette decided to talk about the one thing that made her happy. Her husband.

'Once upon a time, two people's lives crossed in a way that stitching makes clothing. All complicated and tightly woven. Every single thread crosses. No matter what, they were bound to meet. And things were bound to go a certain way. It was fate. Their names? Adrien... and Marinette.' She said, with a wistful smile on her face. There was a sad air about her.

'At first, Marinette didn't like Adrien, not at all. He was friends with a bully, after all. Marinette assumed that he was one too. That was dumb of her. He was amazing. One day, it was raining. And he gave her his umbrella. He was beautiful and so sweet. And Marinette fell in love.

'Sometimes life sneaks up on you like that. Marinette was always too caught up in her love to ever do anything about it. It was actually Adrien who made the first move. Marinette could have died from the amount of glee that went through her heart.' Marinette continued. Aria interjected.

'What happened maman?'

'They got married. Granted, Adrien's father never approved. He thought that to be an Agreste, you needed to be successful. I always thought that Gabriel never ever felt love. Adrien disagreed. He said that his father was in love, once. And what an amazing love it was.

'One day, Adrien confided in Marinette that he didn't think he'd be a good father. Too afraid that he was going to end up like his own. Too afraid to take the leap. Marinette coaxed him, and together they overcame his fear. He was a great man. Because when their baby was born, and he held that baby and saw the stars stuck in her gums and the grin in her eyes, he fell in love. He felt more loved than he ever did. He went from being rarely told he was loved, to feeling it in his soul.'

'What was the babies name?' Aria asked, eager.

'Why, I think they named that baby girl Aria!' Marinette chuckled. 'Okay girl, time for your nap! Love you!'

'I love you too, maman! And papa!' She cried, tottering to her room. Marinette followed, a gleeful laugh on her lips.

 

__

 

Somewhere, in a private graveyard, the wind blows. A black umbrella, leaning against a gravestone, almost falls over. It doesn't, but there's a bell attached to the handle that sways in the wind, chiming with a soft rhythm.


End file.
